This disclosure relates generally to the field of testing in a computing system, and more particularly to a preserve status parameter for use in testing in a computing system.
At various stages during the life cycle of a computing system, such as development or deployment in the field, various software or hardware components of the computing system may exhibit problems such as bugs or other unusual behaviors. In the process of fixing problems in the computing system, testing may be performed that includes attempts to recreate the problem in order to learn more about the problem. As the problem is recreated, error information regarding the state of the computer during the recreation of the problem, such as trace data, storage dumps, or state saves, may be stored for inspection. However, the stored error information may give an incomplete picture of the state of the computing system surrounding the problem. For example, storage dumps and state saves merely provide a snapshot of the state of the computing system at the time the dump or state save was taken, and may not provide a complete picture of data that is relevant to the problem depending on when the problem occurred relative to the storage dump or state save. Further, storage of error information in a computing system may require a large amount of memory. For example, trace data may be generated by the computing system at a high volume such that the trace data wraps, overwriting earlier trace data and rendering it unavailable for inspection. Therefore, by the time an error is detected, trace data pertinent to diagnosis of the error may be overwritten, causing loss of the trace data.